Parsi Dairy Farm won't shut down, 300 acre agricultural land holding to be disposed off

The good news: Contrary to news reports, the iconic Parsi Dairy Farm is not shutting down. The company is selling off its 300-acre parcel of land at Talasari, an agricultural land in Warvada village on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border. “We are not shutting down. That’s not true. It is a rumour,” the manager at the Parsi Dairy Farm at Princess Street, said. He was tight-lipped about divulging any further details. However, he clarified that the firm was selling off the land at Talasari. [caption id=“attachment_2405624” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Parsi Dairy Farm building. Image Credit: Twitter @rommelferns77[/caption] This comes even as a Times of India report has suggested that the iconic dairy farm would shut down. The Nariman family, which founded the dairy, bought the land back in 1968 for livestock and to support its dairy activities. The reports also suggests that the family may look to shut shop or sell the brand in the near future. When every store you can think of in the city has marched with the times with shiny shop fronts, bright furniture and snazzy name boards, Parsi Dairy Farm has remained an anachronism that speaks of a genteel time when Mumbai was Bombay — with mills, mill workers, sound of sirens signalling time to go to work, only black and yellow taxis, friendly shopkeepers who were known to family, et al. The blue shopfront with the name, Parsi Dairy Farm, written in black and milk cans outside is one such familiar and comforting image. It has remained consistent too with its quality in milk and milk products. If you haven’t slurrped `shudh’ ghee, rich milk or their creamy desserts at Parsi Dairy Farm, you haven’t really lived in Mumbai.   The Parsi Dairy Farm was founded in 1916 by Parsi entrepreneur Nariman Ardheshir, and has since been run by the Nariman family. It was included in CNN Travel’s 10 vintage Bombay brands in 2010 and is one of the most frequented sweet shops in South Mumbai. It has not been a smooth ride for the store. The shop remained closed from November 2006 to June 2007 after workers went on strike protesting non-payment of dues, according to a Mumbai Mirror report. In 2008, the workers planned another strike over wage issues, continues the report. The overall production of the farm has also gone down, over the past decade-and-a-half, with the business plummeting from supplying 15,000 litres of milk a day to barely 2,000 litres today, according to The Times of India. The good news is that the Parsi Dairy Farm is going to be around.